According to the NY Times today, Google is lobbying the FCC to introduce web innovation into the incredibly IMPORTANT auction of UHF spectrum that is scheduled to take place in February of 2009. For why this Spectrum Auction will be a pivotal event in Internet History, for good or bad, please read Harold Feld’s Analysis of the importance of the 700MHz Spectrum Auction. Harold works for the Media Access Project, which lobbies Congress in the Public Interest in matters related to the Media, Cable, Broadband, Wifi and the Telecomms and has a much better understanding of these things than us mere mortals do. If you don’t have the time to read his rather long analysis, then, to make a very long story short, this auction IF IT’S RUN PROPERLY BY THE FCC, has the power to introduce real competition into broadband internet access. The problem is that past auctions did exactly the opposite by stacking the odds in favor of the incumbent telcos and media companies, who could, through open (rather than anonymous) bidding, signal to each other their intentions and shut out newcomers. Bidders also needed to put up huge performance bonds in order to bid at all, and since lead time on these auctions is long, that tied up capital that smaller companies couldn’t afford to have tied up as easily as the larger incumbents, another form of favoritism.

So, what’s Google up to? The NY Times states that they are; “calling on the agency (FCC) to let companies allocate radio spectrum using the same kind of real-time auction that the search engine company now uses to sell advertisements . . . . In their proposal, Google executives argue that by permitting companies to resell the airwaves in a real-time auction would make it possible to greatly improve spectrum use and simultaneously create a robust market for innovative digital services. For instance, a company could resell its spectrum on an as-needed basis to other providers, the executives said in their formal proposal to the federal agency.” This Google proposal is endorsed by Frontline Wireless, an investor group planning to bid in the upcoming auction, and formed by an ex FCC chairman and sporting some top Google Alumni.

Interesting times ahead. It’ll be interesting to see if Dingell and Markey have any say on this matter. They recently held Kevin Martin’s cojones over a lit fire for the FCC’s abominable bad methods for reporting Broadband deployment in the US, and its archaic definition of broadband.

Although this Spectrum Auction is NOT being covered by the Media (can we say conflict of interest?) it’s being intently watched by media wonks, policy wonks, the netroots, consumer groups and others.

Technorati Tags: FCC Spectrum Auction, Kevin Martin, Dingell, Markey, Google, Frontline Wireless

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007 at 10:30 amunder Web News and . Comment RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.